


Spotter

by Potato_Being



Series: New Vegas [4]
Category: Fallout: New Vegas
Genre: Falling In Love, Friendship/Love, Grief/Mourning, M/M, Revenge, Suicidal Thoughts
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-17
Updated: 2021-01-17
Packaged: 2021-03-14 22:15:26
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,034
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28802661
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Potato_Being/pseuds/Potato_Being
Summary: Boone realizes he's in love again. It's terrifying. Everything around him breaks, surely Marshal will be next despite how unkillable he seems to be.Boone realizes he's in love again. He takes that risk.
Relationships: Craig Boone/Male Courier
Series: New Vegas [4]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/742605
Kudos: 8





	Spotter

**Author's Note:**

> what happens if i show up out of nowhere once a year, post things, then vanish again would that be convenient
> 
> CW for suicidal ideation, general self-loathing

He's nothing-- he's worse than nothing, nothing he does goes right and everything falls apart-- he's cursed, he knows he's cursed and everyone he loves dies. Everyone he gets close to gets hurt. It'd be better if he kept his distance and never spoke to another person, it'd be better if--

But he… he looks over at Boone. Marshal looks over, and smiles, big eyes, big smile, absolute love written on every part of him and Boone melts in his gaze. Weak-kneed flipping-stomach melting, Boone would stay in Marshal's gaze forever if he could, no one should be able to be that warm. Christ he's in love again. It's a horrible feeling, nauseous and giddy and Boone hates it as he watches Marshal watch him with unearned devotion and compassion because if he knows anything, it's that Marshal is going to be what the universe comes for next. It has to. It makes sense. The best thing in his life, the best thing the Mojave's ever seen and ever will see, that's who will get hurt first.

Marshal hugs him. Gently. His kisses are soothing on his forehead, his hands, his arms, silence in dark rooms of an empty apartment while the others wander the Strip. Boone wants to let him in, let Marshal take him apart because he knows that if that happens, then Marsh would put him back together ten times better than he started, because his hands aren't made for breaking they're made for fixing.

He wants to lean in, lie down, hold tight. It hurts, Marshal at his side running thin fingers along his jaw and neck, soft humming of Mexican lullabies the only sound. It's tragic, he knows. It's a self-fulfilling prophecy, he knows. He'll never change, he knows.

Bitter Springs changes that.  
He'd talked, mentioned, broke down, sobbed, slept, planned, let him in, and when the smoke of the constant tire fire of his life had cleared a bit Marshal was there, patiently waiting for him.

They went. They waited. They fought. They won. And in the end, when every last Legion soldier is dead and Marshal is taking a mental tally of how many civilians survived because of course he does, he turns to Boone. With a wide smile and soft eyes. Welcoming. Understanding. Loving. And Boone… he pulls Marshal away from the eyes and people and dead, back over Coyote Ridge, back across the desert, until Marshal stops him, taking hands rougher and larger in his own and looking up at Boone with more empathy than anyone should ever look at him with, and he…

Marshal takes Boone's head gently. He stands on tiptoe, stretched up as much as he can. Hands gentle on his face, lips too soft to be real on his own, and Boone grabs onto Marshal like he'll vanish in an instant, and he ignores the sick feeling that maybe he will, he appeared in an instant he'll vanish in an instant and lets himself feel good. For one moment. For one breath. He pulls away, Marshal looking up at him, ready to begin apologising for overstepping and Boone kisses him. Chases the feelings of worth and love, as much as those concepts feel foreign to him, but he's young, he can learn a new language, especially if Marshal is the one to teach him.

Big grey eyes soft as liquid mercury. His sister has frozen tin for eyes, his brother bright silver. But he, him, his triplet, Marshal has the pools of a toxic but beautiful element. He'd make comparisons between Marshal and mercury but the only similarities end with 'grey, move weirdly, can kill you', and there's really nothing to that analogy so he drops it.

Committing to… all of this. This mess. This war. This courier who forgot his own name. Is it self-destruction? Probably. Is it his lack of self-worth making him act like he does? Absolutely. But it's also the beginning of a promise. Of a chance. Of an offer. Of a thousand different things all centered on a courier that stumbled into his life chasing his murderer across the Mojave.

It'd make a good story. 'Hey, how did you meet?' 'Oh he puked in the bushes, wandered into my sniper nest, assumed I was going to kill him and then found the woman who sold my wife into slavery so I could kill her, then asked me to get him to New Vegas while slowly dying from being shot in the head.' 'Oh, and your other partner?' 'The doctor at the place I brought him. Was there for a month, left with the doctor as well, haven't been separated since.' It sounds like a joke. A sick joke. But Marshal only lies when there are lives on the line, and Arcade physically can't lie. So it's genuine.

He sleeps with Marshal wrapped around him in an effort to keep both their nightmares away and it actually works sometimes. The other nights one or both of them are searching the apartment with a gun, a knife, a flashlight and a cranky doctor trying to get them to calm down. They go back to bed. They go back to sleep. They wake up in the dark, memories and nightmares chasing them with outstretched hands and teeth. They go back to sleep.

Snipers work in teams and Boone has the best damn spotter he could ever hope for. Marshal looks at Legion through binoculars, relays to Boone, finds routes and animal paths he'd have never seen, and when they sit on a tiny cliff in winter as a snowstorm threatens to come down around them, Marshal doesn't complain, just sits wrapped in his coat and his blanket and making sure Boone's gloves are intact and warm enough. It works, beautifully, three hours later the storm hits, they're surrounded by white and the Legion patrol can't see them. But Marshal sees the patrol, and Boone trusts Marshal.

It isn't pretty, or clean, or safe, or coherent. All it is is a man fighting himself being given options by another man too kind for his own good and when those options are taken… he's able to begin healing.

They all are.


End file.
